Well, I guess this is as good a time as any..." Momonga sighed as he sat down on a toilet seat while the Gremory estate in Rating Game grounds shook with occasional blasts and explosions that came from the direction of the living room.
While he technically felt that breaking up a fight between his Peerage members, which Momonga assumed the fight being, would be his responsibility... he somehow doubted that it'd end well for anyone involved if he barged in and brought the quarrel to an end.
So, he planned on letting the quarrel reach its natural conclusion while he used the ruckus as an excuse to see if he could find out what was wrong with his Inventory.
'Right, so...' Momonga reached his hand into his inventory again, and as expected, something bit on it and he pulled his hand back.
His Inventory had a cosmetic applied to it which made it look like a violet and black-shimmering rift in the air, and he could put his hand in it and allow the auto-sorting feature of the 'item' to bring whatever Momonga wanted out of the Inventory.
The cosmetic and the retriever mechanic had both been cash-shop items, but Momonga felt justified in getting them as a necromancer carrying a burlap bag around seemed more than a little undignified, and since he was something of a pack-rat, finding items from his cash-shop extended inventory would have been impossible without a auto-sorter and a retriever.
Shaking his head to clear the rising mist of self-justification that threatened to envelop it (as the inventory features had cost good chunk of his salary for three months, during which Suzuki Satorou had subsisted on stale water and overdue rice buns), Momonga opened his inventory wide so he could look into it, and saw a slit-irised eye the size of a car tire staring back at him through the 'rift' that made the visual gateway to his Inventory.
Momonga quickly closed the rift as the eye blinked.
He opened it again and dodged a torrent of red-green fire that came from it, quickly closing the inventory and using a bildet to extinguish the remains of the flame before it could set the restroom on fire. It seemed that the fire was immune to mundane attempts at extinguishing it though so his attempt was quite futile, but the flame burned so hot that it paradoxically didn't spread as whatever it had touched just turned to ash immediately, denying it a chance to cling and spread, and thus the flame extinguished itself.
Nonetheless, the 'splash' of the fire had left the bathroom in dire need of a renovation, making it look like some sort of battlefield.
Momonga opened his Inventory for the fourth time, this time wide enough to look properly into the Inventory's contents as the rift spread to approximate size of a window.
A fairly decent-sized red dragon, at least in comparison to the one he had encountered in the Interdimensional Gap, looked back at Momonga from the Inventory.
Momonga paused in sudden realization, and then he adopted a polite expression as he realized that there was a hostile dragon of unknown origin in his inventory. "Ah, hello. How did thine excellency get in there? May I ask thine name, o grand dragon?"
The dragon seemed to pause from the flattery. "I am Ddraig, monster. Know the name of your slayer, and face your death when I get out of... this place."
The voice of the dragon seemed to echo in Momonga's head, but was completely silent to his ears. 'Hm, telepathy then? Would you be perhaps reading my thoughts, o noble dragon?'
The dragon narrowed his eyes at Momonga. "Well, monster? What do you say in response to my challenge, do you quiver in fear and seek to contain me or release me and face me in battle?"
'Hm, so not telepathy. Perhaps some form of projection of thoughts similar to [Message]...' Momonga shrugged mentally and prepared another serving of subservient rubbish on the dragon's plate. "Ah, but would thee tell thine story first? I may be but a humble human, but if I had to tell thee my last wish before my death you have sworn, I would wish to hear thine glorious story!"
After all, asking for the dragon's abilities and specializations would be quite foolish, but most of the time a dragon's story and their abilities were linked together so knowing one would allow one to deduce the other. When combined with how vain and prideful quite few of the dragons were, it felt like flattery would get him far.
Granted, Momonga didn't know much about the abilities the locals would have, but a hint was better than nothing.
"Heh... No. You replaced my previous Wielder, and more importantly, you locked me in here like a trinket! Me, the Red Dragon Emperor, already locked into a [Sacred Gear], displayed as a trophy in a glass case! The audacity! And for that, you will suffer." The dragon pulled another breath, preparing for a fight. "The treasures here will make a fine prize for me after you suffer for your transgressions! Face my fire, [Boos-"
Momonga's placating expression vanished in an instant.
"Now listen here you little shit. [True Death]. [Grasp Heart]."
"GUH!"
The dragon keeled over and crashed into something as [Aura of Despair: I] exploded out of Momonga, making him realize that it had been suppressed as well as his [High-Tier Physical Immunity].
The emotion suppression practically dived on top of a live grenade as it struggled to contain Momonga's rage and push it back down to reasonable levels, and it eventually managed to reach that point but not before Momonga had cast two more [True Deaths] on the now motionless dragon. 'O- oh, I lost control... damn, damn, I could have died if it managed to retaliate! I can't afford any more slip-ups!'
"S-stop! Stop! I understand, I was wrong, You've made the pecking order clear!" The dragon's 'corpse' twitched and it lifted its head, its eyes panicked. "I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes... Ugh, my heart hurts, ow... the hell are you, mon- er, master? Please-dont-do-that-again-I-beg-of-you!"
Hearing the dragon's panicked words Momonga paused before he could cast another [Grasp Heart]. The dragon surviving the spell barrage was expected, after all it would be quite pathetic if something died from just a few tier nine spells, but he was surprised that the creature would concede so quickly. 'Could it be that it's just weak? I'll play along for now, but I won't be caught off guard when it reveals its trump card...'
He suspected foul play and stayed on guard. "Your attempts at making me lower my guard are ineffective, Dragon. [True Death]"
The dragon slumped down on a pile of Momonga's treasures, and lifted its head. "P-please stop, my soul can't take much more of this! I already feel like my soul is getting cut into thin strips and turned into a soup! I get the deal, you're the master, I'm the servant, I'm sorry, I didn't want your treasury anyway- er, no, I wanted it, it's very pretty and cool, yes, but I don't want to steal it anymore- PLEASE-NO-MORE-UGH!"
"[Grasp Heart]"
"Okay listen if I die here then I swear I'm going to explode into an ocean of fire and if that happens it'll set everything in here on fire and no I can't turn that ability off and..." Momonga paused as the dragon tried a different tactic after recovering and lifting its head up again, seemingly resisting and not resisting the instant-death spell at the same time.
"Ah, so I have to make sure I leave you alive. But you won't need your arms, legs, wings, or most of your organs and meat, right?"
"NO! I'M SORRY! LOOK, I CAN HELP, I KNOW STUFF, ABOUT MAGIC AND [SACRED GEARS] AND HOW LOOK COOL WHILE FLYING AWAY FROM EXPLOSIONS AND HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AND...!"
"Hm?" Momonga paused.
"I can teach you how to talk to girls!"
"No, no, the other thing. The gears thing." Momonga felt like palming his face. He paused as he saw that his skin had become pale and almost paper-like. '...Is my current body dying from using too much Death Magic?'
"I am actually trapped in a [Sacred Gear] as we speak. It's called the [Boosted Gear] after the ability it confers to its wielder, namely my signature ability, [Boost] that doubles the wielder's power for a short duration and can be cast every ten seconds! There's also a bunch of other [Sacred Gears] I know of!" The dragon explained quickly through the Inventory rift that was now roughly the size of a window on the ruined toilet stall's wall. "I'm being useful, see? The [Boosted Gear] also confers a bunch of other dragon-centered abilities, like..."
"Do the buffs stack?" Momonga asked the burning question as he realized that [Sacred Gears] were actually quite powerful.
"Yes! And it has no known maximum limit outside the user's stamina to keep casting it and the amount of power their body can hold!"
"Well that's broken as hell." Momonga felt sweat dripping down his neck as he realized that [Sacred Gears] weren't just powerful, but outright broken. 'Wait, did he say that his signature ability was [Boost]? Does that mean... oh crap... I think my attacks impressed him or something, if he had managed to use [Boost] a few times I'd have been flattened...'
He recalled the story of a man asking the Emperor of China a single grain of rice as his reward, but that the number of rice would be doubled for each spot on a chess board, and then getting executed when the Emperor had realized that the total rice output of the whole country wouldn't be enough to reward the man entirely. 'So with that kind of [Sacred Gear], even an ant could beat the god- ouch- as long as it spent an afternoon buffing itself...'
'The dragon seems honest in his words, and in the way he cowers... I'll believe it for now, but before that...' "Dragon. Tell me your full name."
"I am Y Ddraig Goch, the Welsh Dragon, the Red Dragon Emperor, the..."
"Alright, that's enough, I'll call you Ddraig. How did you get in my Inventory?" Momonga cut him short. 'Well, that explains why his name was mushed in my list of items, if he goes by so many names and they all overlapped...'
"...My last wielder, or rather, the person who wielded the [Sacred Gear] I had been imprisoned in, [Boosted] himself too much. He was stabbed in the heart, but before he died he swore he'd kill his killer and protect his love, Rias... So, I took the power he had been building up with the [Boosts] and used it to perform [Soul Transferal]. I tried to place his killer, Riser, in Issei's mortal vessel, which would also transfer Issei into Riser's body, killing his killer by swapping their bodies and giving Issei a chance to marry Rias..." The dragon seemed mournful. "But, when I cast the spell... Well, I fell into a void, and found myself in here, and found that the [Sacred Gear] I had been in was locked into an unbreakable glass display case. Something tried to grab an item from the place a few times and I defended myself, and now we're here. So, I'm assuming you've taken Issei's place, you who hold the scent of death?"
"Ah." 'So, this overgrown garden lizard is responsible for me ending up in this body?' Momonga felt his anger abate again, although this time because of his own actions, and not because of the emotion suppression, as Suzuki realized that the alternative would have been to return to his mundane, nightmarishly boring and stressful office worker-life. The fact the dragon had pulled into this world instead made him a little grateful towards the dragon, even if his life here might be cut short due to all the strong enemies that were around. 'Interesting. Then if what he's saying is true, Momonga's body, er, my real body, er, the Overlord body is still somewhere, but is just a soulless husk... Assuming that it wasn't destroyed when YGGDRASIL shut down... Would that mean Nazarik is also somewhere, if it made the transition?'
Momonga paused his theorizing as he blinked, realizing a very important fact- The Dragon had pulled a soul that was a combination of Suzuki and Momonga from his 'world', and thus, Ddraig was likely to be extremely powerful and Momonga had only managed to fool the dragon into a sense of inferiority with his non-stop barrage of tier nine spells. If he ever discovered that Momonga wasn't actually all that strong, the dragon would just start casting [Boost] on itself and crush him entirely.
But Suzuki was too busy having an existential crisis in order to worry about possible imminent death coming from the currently cowed god-like dragon.
Perhaps the reason why Suzuki hadn't been pulled alone from YGGDRASIL and his own world was because he had identified himself so much with Momonga that as far as his soul was concerned there was no difference between the two. Indeed, Suzuki identified himself as both Suzuki and Momonga, and by extension, if Momonga had become a creature holding a soul, it would too be both Momonga and Suzuki at the same time.
Ruckus seemed to build outside the restroom door so Momonga decided that it would be best to cut the existence-shaking revalations short until he managed to process them.
"Red Dragon Emperor, Ddraig. If you say you wish to be my servant, then very well, I accept your servitude. Devote yourself to me, and you'll find that I reward loyalty with loyalty, duty with treasure, and betrayal with torment and death. Take a look at the fourth row of containers to the left and read to me their contents." Momonga adapted his best impression of an Overlord, radiating dread and the aura of a ruler and tyrant.
The dragon turned its neck and slithered its head between the rows and rows of containers and musky display cabinets. "Erm... dragon steak. Right, point understood, I'll behave."
"Good. Now, when I want to grab something from my Inventory, where you currently lie, you may not attack me or hinder me in any way. And as a reward for your honesty with me, I'll allow you to pick and read a single book in my library. Eight row from the right, the books are in those cases." Momonga felt that handing out an olive branch might be a good idea, and having a bored red dragon in his inventory probably wouldn't be a good idea either.
"I hear and understand, lord- what should I call thee?" Ddraig bowed its head just slightly, although it was clear as day that the dragon's nature fought against the act with all it had.
"I go by Issei Phenix."
"That is not your true name, my lord." Ddraig hesitated to say. "I know Issei Hyoudou, and you wear his face..."
"Then know me as... Momon. Yes." Momonga thought for a moment before realizing that if the dragon ever got out and he gave it his real name, when combined with the talkative Elder Lich spreading word how 'the Supreme Being' was about to crush everything, it'd be too easy to make the connection if the Elder Lich slipped his real name as well at one point or another.
Calling himself with a shortened version of his own name felt a bit easy and even quaint, but Momonga felt that it was enough to distance him between the persona he was forging into 'issei's body and the 'Supreme Being Momonga', and also gave him a degree of plausible deniability while maintaining enough familiarity with the name.
He was already making himself feel like a stranger in someone else's body (that, granted, was exactly the case) when everyone called him 'Issei'.
"Very well, lord Momon." the Dragon bowed its head again, this time with seemingly less forced movements.
Momon nodded regally, and closed his inventory but not before pulling a health potion from it.
'I wonder... If this body is really not quite mine, would healing items affect me the way they would affect the undead, or the way it would affect the living?' Momonga contemplated as he poured a drop on the skin of his hand, his skin having become quite pale after using the Death Magic he specialized in.
The drop impacted his skin, causing it to let out a hiss as a burning sensation spread across his hand and turned the skin from pale and papery into healthy hue. 'Huh, traditional healing items cause small amounts of damage to 'Momonga' but heal 'Issei's body'... interesting. I'm also assuming that this body will break down if I use too much high-tier magic... So would negative energy then heal Momonga and damage this body?'
Momonga downed the rest of the health potion and almost fell on his knees as the potion caused some damage to his health but also repaired his body, the discarded empty bottle shattering into dust. The burning feeling and damage he observed to his health made him realize that he still had his [Despair Aura: I] active and quickly suppressed it. 'Darn, hopefully no-one notice-'
The door to the restroom burst open with Sirzechs, Lady Phenix, and few other people Issei didn't recognize entering immediately afterwards. They all looked like they were ready for battle and their faces bore grim determination, with Lady Phenix looking specifically vicious.
Behind them were Momonga's, no, Momon's new Peerage, same determination in their faces as well but for some reason making Momonga think that their determination stemmed from other reasons than the Maou's and his retinues.
"Ah..." Momonga lifted himself up from the floor and sat down on the toilet seat. "H-hi?"
"Issei..." Rias flung herself past Sirzechs and latched onto 'Issei's neck, hugging Momonga with near blind desperation. "Thank Maou you're alright..."
So, she's talking to me again? Women are so complicated..' Suzuki sighed in frustration at the red-heads sudden change of mood.
"What happened here, Issei-kun?" Sirzechs asked, eyeing the bathroom that looked like a battlefield thanks to Ddraig's inventory-borne fire breath. "You're pale... we sensed some seriously messed-up Aura enveloping the house after I broke up a fight that had started between your Peerage, Issei-kun. We initially thought there was another undead attack, but we didn't find any... until we found that you had left your Peerage's presence and it clicked."
Momonga's eyes widened. 'Did he...'
"It seems we have more spies amongst our ranks than I thought, if this 'Supreme Being' discovered the Great Red's plan to use you as his champion so quickly. The 'Being' must have launched a separate attack just to assassinate you while using the aura to distract us from helping you." Sirzechs reached to support Issei's shoulder as the latter shook like a leaf from the close call. "What happened here, Issei-kun? You look like someone had tried to pull your life away from you and had been stopped halfway through."
"Erm, I'm... well..." Momonga struggled to form an explanation while he instinctively pat Rias's head, the girl having buried her head in 'Issei's chest. "It's kind of hard to explain, I was sitting on a toilet, doing my thing, and a rift opened here and I fought with a dragon. The flames got kinda out of control and burned this place..."
Sirzech's grip on 'Issei's shoulder tightened. "Ah... Ophis..."
"Something happened in the middle of the fight that caused my body to... well, wilt. I think Death Magic or something like that was used." Momonga continued, trying his best to twist the truth so it made it seem as if he was the one fighting with fire and the other side with Death Magic. "I managed to close the rift just moments before you guys arrived, and started to heal myself. It was actually a fairly close call, if I hadn't attacked instantly I'd have died..."
"Huh... " Lady Phenix seemed absolutely stunned as he spoke, before she stalked closer to Momonga and pushed Rias aside, ignoring the angry snarl that came from the girl. "You... are regenerating..."
She then looked at the burned remains of the bathroom, a determined look coming to her eyes. "...Sirzechs-sama. I'm sorry for doubting you and Beelzebub-sama. Issei-san has truly inherited my Riser's abilities as a Phoenix."
"I'm sorry but I must refuse your apology, for there was nothing to apologize for in the first place." Sirzechs bowed suavely towards the possibly-widow woman who was looking at Momonga as if she had seen him for the first time.
Momonga was completely stunned as tears started to form on Lady Phenix's eyes and she hugged 'Issei', healing tears streaming down her face and absorbing themselves into his skin.
"Ah, it's alright, everything's fine..." Momonga tried to salvage the situation by patting the older woman's head, causing her to cry even harder and making Momonga feel incredibly awkward and painful.
The latter mostly because the healing tears were practically burning Momonga.
'Ow, ow, ow, emotion suppression, thank you for suppressing pain, ow ow... ' The body-invader Overlord tried to keep his borrowed face steady as the drops kept falling, dealing fairly insignificant damage, but being incredibly distracting since he couldn't really do anything about it, outside tossing the Phenix matriarch out of a window and thus breaking his barely-holding cover persona. 'Oh come on... This can't get any wo- you know what, I'll just shut up now.